Phrasal-Verbs – Letter A

– Phrasal-Verbs & Verb Phrases – Letter A –

Aa

(to) Age Well – This is an Adjectival Phrasal-Verb which means: To be aging in a way where-in the person doing-so is staying healthy, beautiful, handsome, and looks much younger than most other people who are his or her age.

(to) Aim High – This is an idiomatic phrasal verb which is used to mean: To not limit one’s goals and objectives; to set one’s standards very high; to strive for and accept only the best.

(to)Apply (some)Pressure – This verbphrase can be both literal (*apply pressure* to a wound) or figuratively to describe when someone does something to increase the level of stress, “urgency” or importance of a situation… “In order to get the project done to the level that we needed, I had to *apply* some *pressure* to the production team.” (Notice also that the phrasal verb is separable)

(to)TickAllThe Boxes –This is an Idiomatic Adjectival Verb Phrase. Though the word “tick” is a verb, this is not describing an action. Instead it is using the idea of an action to describe the thing. “Ticking Boxes” is something that is done in a check-list to ensure that something meets all requirements or is up to specification… So to say that something “Ticks All The Boxes” means that whatever is being described has all of the things necessary to fulfill certain requirements. – (See Also: “(to) Hit/Punch/Push All the Right Buttons“)